re: Mens cologne

Jack Black makes some great colognes.

Hard to find though.

Wife bought me one of those trial sets for Christmas last year. I ended up settling on the John Varvatos one. It has a really clean smell that isn’t overpowering and you also won’t smell like a frat boy.

Sauvage

I use Ralph Lauren black. But it takes me years to finish a bottle. I only do kind of a half spray kind of to the side so that only half of the spray gets on me.

That's where people go wrong with cologne. The less you apply the better.

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use Ralph Lauren black

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There is a black bottle with a silver cap and horse and then “double black” which is a black cap and horse. I have the double black variety. It was a former favorite of mine. Definitely more of something I’d wear to an evening event/dinner/date than to work or school. It’s got a very nice fresh minty smell, a hint of warm spices, and maybe a touch of citrus. The dry-down and undertones are just a little muddy/mixed in a not-great way (it’s not a negative. Teenage me didn’t know that $50/bottle Ralph Lauren wasn’t top of the line stuff, but compared to the spice combo in, say, Creed Viking, this is just not in the same ballpark. I LOVED this scent now except for one complaint, upcoming. I think it’s one that if you haven’t smelled some of the “better” stuff you may not notice).

Biggest complaint: very poor sillage and very short wear time (I’m thinking it’s the same problem rather than two). I don’t look to take over a room, and I don’t look for people to compliment me. So this one is good for that. But even my wife has sort of caught on to asking me which cologne is which or guessing which one I’m wearing. This one just doesn’t catch her attention when it’s on. People don’t ask what it is, and I’ve never had anyone say I smell nice or otherwise in it. I still enjoy it. When I started wearing stuff more about 5y ago, it was one of the first ones I sought out and rebought to relive “the glory days” (I got deep enough down the rabbit hole to find an extinct bottle of RL Romance for men (again- weak sillage, rapid offset, apricot-scent. Early college me thought it was great until I found out what great was. Still enjoyable to have) in a Facebook group and bought it off a stranger). It reminds me a lot of being in college and has a nostalgic feel for me, but it’s not a crowd pleaser, and an hour later even I can’t tell it’s on.

Price/performance- it’s fair value for what it is. But if you spend more, you’ll get noticeably better.

Another vote for Bleu de Chanel as an all-around pick. L'homme is another good one, but more spring-summery than Bleu imo. La Nuit de L'homme is the fall-winter version of it and is also fantastic, but is much more for cold seasons and nights.

Sauvage is very good too, but my wife liked Bleu better. What we did was go to the store and let her blind sample them to see which ones she liked and Bleu won every matchup.

Paul Sebastián

Brut…..by Faberge’

I know these are old school, but "Cool Water" and "Curve"(in green bottle) are my favorites. Also, "Sexy" for men by Victorias secret....Standby is "Fierce" by Abercrombie